Sculpted door handles have been placed on coolers and refrigerators used to house beverages or other items in retail outlets and elsewhere. These sculpted handles add to the aesthetics of the cooler door. The sculpted handles also may increase the exposure of the beverages or other items offered for sale to the passing consumers, i.e., the handle may catch the consumer's eye. For example, it is known to replace a cooler door handle with a handle sculpted in the shape of the well-known contoured bottle of The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Ga. The use of such a sculpted handle serves to draw attention to the cooler and the beverages or other products within the cooler.
One goal in the design of the sculpted handles is to make the handle appear as close as possible to the product it is simulating. In the case of the contoured bottle, the design goal would be to have the handle appear as close as possible to an actual bottle of a carbonated soft drink. To date, this has been accomplished with a metal or a composite door handle manufactured in the shape of the contoured bottle. The handle is then painted partially with a dark color to simulate the carbonated beverage and partially with a light color to simulate the top of the bottle. The trademarks or other types of source indicia of the manufacturer or the distributor are then added to the door handle. Although the handle may appear to be an actual bottle at a distance, a close inspection of the handle may reveal that the handle is a close simulation.
What is needed, therefore, is a door handle or a similar object that attracts the eye of a consumer and also simulates a product to the greatest extent possible. Such a simulation should be realistic and easy to operate, while being relatively inexpensive to provide.